To be sure, it’s less exciting to talk about the configuration and operation of governing boards than it is to talk about scaling up successful charter school models. But this much is true: It’s no fun dissecting the breakdown in governance that has led to a charter school’s closure.

That’s the current reality in Clearwater, Florida. There, the Ben Gamla Charter School is closing its doors after one year of operation not because it performed poorly (most of its fifty students scored well on the state assessment) or because of financial problems (it was thousands of dollars in the black) but because it wrested too much control from its parent foundation....

Traditional school districts and public charter schools are often positioned as competitors, rivals, even enemies. But must they? In February 2010, the Gates Foundation established the District-Charter Collaboration Compact initiative to promote peace and join these two forces in the real battle: improving educational outcomes. This interim report—naught more than a status update, but instructional nonetheless—documents these efforts to date. Sixteen cities participated in the first round, sharing things like physical resources, facilities, and instructional best practices and developing a common enrollment system, expedited by $100,000 Gates grants to each community. Progress on Compact commitments (including a special education collaborative in New York and shared professional development in Boston) has been “episodic,” however, rocked by things like leadership transitions (in Chicago, for instance, initial progress made under Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard has slowed since his exit) and local anti-charter sentiment. Still, the update lauds the fact that district leaders in all sixteen cities report improved dialogue. In December 2012, seven of the sixteen communities—Hartford, Denver, New York City, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Spring Branch, Texas—were granted additional funds, totaling close to $25 million, to continue the work.

If in preparation for celebrating our nation's declaration of independence—and by the way, for the record, the actual Declaration of Independence is a suggested text in the Common Core, as are many of our founding documents—you missed the thirteenth annual National Charter Schools Conference, here are twelve key takeaways (and only a handful of Fordham plugs and shout-outs):

2. Pitbull—yes, a hip-hop artist gave a keynote address bright and early on Monday (How many people had even had their coffee?). For the best take on his speech, check out The Washington Post'sReliable Source.

3. The Walton Family Foundationwas inducted into the Alliance's Hall of Fame for its tireless work in improving education and the school-choice movement (they have invested more than $1 billion in education*). The only question is why this recognition didn’t come earlier.

4. Howard Fuller, for many, represents what the charter school movement is all about. He calls it as he sees it—and...

The global competitiveness of the U.S. education system continues to drive much of the school reform dialogue. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) contributed to the conversation last week with a broad report on the progress and productivity of education in the U.S.

In Remedial Education: Federal Education Policy, Rebecca Strauss, associate director of Renewing America publications at CFR considers the most critical challenges facing America’s education system. The report identifies the system’s biggest problems: achievement gaps between the rich and poor, inequality in government spending and performance outcomes, and rising college tuition. After this bleak diagnosis, Strauss presents a comprehensive summary of the federal government’s efforts at improving the state of public education. The report identifies four pillars to innovation: (1) “improving teacher evaluation and effectiveness; (2) expanding high-quality charter schools; (3) encouraging states to adopt common, college-ready standards; and (4) developing data systems to track student performance.”

The report describes the federal government’s continued implementation of accountability standards through the Bush and Obama administrations. This is evidenced by further teacher effectiveness and data-driven education developments. In her appraisal of charter school innovations, Strauss recognizes Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) schools as one of many high-quality charter...

Ohio governor John Kasich has a guest post over at Fordham’s Ohio Gadfly Daily celebrating the state’s newest school-choice initiative, the Income-Based Scholarship Program. And he has good reason to celebrate: This newest effort means that Ohio has more private-school-choice programs than any other state.

School choice has a long history in the Buckeye State, as the governor reminds us. The first program in Ohio (and the second oldest in the nation) was created in Cleveland in 1995 and last year benefitted 6,000 students. Additionally, the state’s Educational Choice Scholarship Program, the Autism Scholarship Program, and the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship Program collectively helped nearly 20,000 K–12 children last year attend a private school of their choice.

Those may not seem like big student numbers, but with every program that’s added and with every student enrolled, Ohio is laying the bricks to build a mansion of publicly funded alternatives to a traditional education. The newest program will start in the fall for Kindergartners who come from households whose incomes fall below 200 percent of the poverty level, and it will grow by one grade level every year.

A recent press release from the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) estimated that 920,007 students are currently on a waitlist to attend charter schools, a jump from the previous year’s 610,000. For some education reformers, this may be a great statistic because it indicates charter schools are taking a more prominent role in education. For others, this same statistic may be absolutely terrifying.

As more charter schools open to meet this demand, students will have a greater potential to be exposed to innovative and rigorous approaches to education. Conversely, a greater demand for a charter school education also runs the risk of having a large number of charters open that disregard the quality of the educational services they provide. In an ideal world, sponsors would sort through charter school applicants to pick out potential high flyers, but news stories about mismanagement and the poor academic performance of some charter schools has shown that sponsors can fail in outlining rigorous criteria for the charter application and renewal process.

As we see a growth in charter schools applicants and a failure in approving high flyers, what are city leaders and legislators to do?

Last week, I was preparing for an upcoming adventurous Alaskan vacation that included thoughts of my wife and me, peacefully floating by dangerous summer artic icebergs, when those mental images were suddenly dashed as I opened up my local newspaper. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported dubious spending activities by the superintendent of the Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy (CCPA) and the contracted treasurer who was approving them.

Both the school director and the treasurer face twenty six counts of theft in office, unauthorized use of property, tampering with evidence and tampering with records. The amount in question exceeds $350,000, and focuses on credit card transactions over the course of a few years that covered lavish trips to Europe, Las Vegas, day spas, an Oprah show in Boston, and so on, under the guise of legitimate business expenses.

The Enquirer also made reference to three other charter school treasurers who were found by State Auditor Dave Yost, to be responsible for more than $1 million in questionable, and possibly illegal, spending of public dollars. All three were involved in the finances of some of Ohio’s most troubled charter schools.

As Fordham’s charter school finance expert on the ground in Ohio for our...

*The commentary below was sent to us and other organizations by the Deputy Press Secretary of the Office of Ohio Governor John Kasich.*

The freedom to pursue our dreams and a better future for ourselves and our children is part of what makes America great. Remembering how Ohio’s longstanding commitment to educational choices for families puts this freedom into practice is something worth celebrating this Fourth of July.

Public schools, private schools, parochial school, charter schools, homeschooling, online schools, and vouchers to attend non-public schools are some of the education options that families and students have at their disposal in Ohio. There is no one-size-fits-all answer in education and Ohio’s array of education options gives families the freedom to find the school setting that aligns best with their values and their children’s needs.

I strongly support this freedom of choice in education and have worked to expand families’ education choices. In my first budget we made it possible for more families to benefit from school choice options and, working with the General Assembly, I’m proud to report that Ohio is adding to these choices in the new two-year budget that I just signed into law.

Ohio is the newest state with an income-based scholarship, joining Indiana, Washington DC, and Wisconsin.

On Sunday, June 30, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed the nation’s newest school choice program into law: a state-sponsored private school scholarship for students starting kindergarten this fall whose family income falls at or below 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines.

This is the state’s fifth school voucher program joining the EdChoice (eligibility based on school performance), Cleveland Scholarship, (for students who would otherwise attend Cleveland Metropolitan School District), and the Jon Peterson and Autism scholarship programs (both for students with special needs).

Parent demand

For many years, parents have been clamoring for an income-based scholarship. Just because they couldn’t afford a better education, they said, didn’t mean that their kids should be stuck in an environment that wasn’t high quality or wasn’t a good fit for them. They recognized the importance of education and knew that they needed to have more, not fewer, doors open to them.

So parents met with their elected representatives and senators in Columbus on advocacy days, spoke at and attended rallies in...

In the past year, charter school naysayers have successfully convinced some media outlets to question the actual demand for charters. Take the now-politicized issue of waiting lists. Reporters in Chicago and Boston, for instance, have recently conducted “reviews” of the lists compiled by charter associations or state education departments to determine that some students appear on more than one list. This led to one headline in the Boston Globe that read, “Charter school demand in Mass. disputed.”

Of course these students may appear on multiple waiting lists. Anticipating this skepticism, however, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools this year estimated the number of individual students on waiting lists for the 2012–13 academic year. Its newest survey showed that the names of at least 520,000 kids appeared in nearly one million waiting-list entries across the country.

To put that number in context, consider that 520,000 is nearly double the number of new charter students (276,000) who actually enrolled this year, bringing the total charter sector to 2.3 million pupils.

What else should we expect? There’s been a yawning gap between charter supply and demand a long time coming. In the past five...